House of Trembling Leaves, The (36 page)

‘‘Right, let's get straight to it, shall we?'' he said, flashing his teeth. ‘‘As I mentioned yesterday, I think I can find Mabel and bring her home.''

‘‘How?''

‘‘Our dandruffy boffins have devised a battery-operated radio receiver, the same type as the ones used by the guerrillas. The only difference is that when switched on our model transmits a silent signal, a type of homing device that can be picked up by our spotter airplanes flying overhead. Once we get a ‘fix' on their positions, we'll drop in a load of non-lethal bromide gas and surround them, forcing them to surrender. There'll be minimal force applied.''

She looked at Stan. ‘‘Why are you telling me this? Surely this is all classified information.''

‘‘We need your help. This fellow Bong, Mabel's troop leader, is a very slippery customer, he moves around the jungle like a ghost. To get the radio receiver to him we have to ensure that in his eyes it comes from a reliable source: who better than Mabel's mother?''

‘‘You want me to betray my daughter?''

‘‘No,'' he grunted, ‘‘I want you to save her life. So long as she's with Bong she won't turn herself in. This way we can nab them and ensure her safety.''

He watched her, analysing her reaction.

Lu See shook her head slowly, saying, ‘‘You throw the stone, but hide your hand.''

‘‘I'm sorry?''

‘‘And if the stone misses, I get the blame, is that it?''

‘‘No, that's not it.''

Lu See looked at the ceiling, unsure. ‘‘I don't know–''

‘‘She'll be executed as a terrorist if you don't do this.''

‘‘How can you be certain your plan will work?''

‘‘I can't guarantee it'll work, Lu See, but it's the best chance we'll get.''

‘‘What if something goes wrong? I mean …'' she hesitated, at a loss for words.

‘‘You're going to have to trust me.'' He glanced over his shoulder as a reflex. He pushed an envelope into her hands. ‘‘Here's three hundred Malayan dollars. This is what I want you to do.''

 

Lu See listened and nodded, listened and nodded. When Stan finished explaining, she rose from her chair and followed him out into the communications room.

There was a man standing under the post-office clocks. He was dressed in an immaculate white suit. He had his back to her. One of his shoulders was lower than the other.

And she was suddenly overcome with fear.

Stan took her by the elbow. ‘‘No,'' she whispered.

‘‘For the love of Rita! What is it?'' Stan demanded impatiently.

‘‘Him?'' she hissed.

The man in the white suit did not turn around.

Stan pulled Lu See by the elbow and soon she found herself in the gloomy corridor, well out of earshot. ‘‘Do you know who that is?'' she spat, staring Stan hard in the eyes. ‘‘That's the Black-headed Sheep.''

Stan drew her aside and kept his voice low. ‘‘And now he's one of our most important agents.'' Lu See felt as if her head was about to burst.

‘‘He's supposed to be dead!''

Stan shushed her.

‘‘The papers reported he'd been killed by the MPAJA. And I saw a man, hanging dead from a tree in Po On Village. I thought at the time I'd been mistaken, that it wasn't him, but the newspapers …'' Her voice trailed off.

Stan shook his head. ‘‘Somebody else, made to look like him.''

‘‘I don't understand.''

‘‘The man you saw was a doppelganger, probably a drunkard or a beggar from the south, hired to look like Woo Hak-yeung. They dressed him in a white suit and paid him to stroll into the village toddy shop and start mouthing off that he was the Black-headed Sheep. Poor sod never saw it coming. The villagers were hungry for blood.''

‘‘But Woo Hak-yeung is a murdering war criminal, a traitor to the Crown.''

‘‘Yes, we know all about his past. But the thing is, during the war that piece of garbage in there was one of Japan's top informers. He knew everything about the anti-Japanese guerrilla movement. How they used the jungle, how they communicated, how their finances worked. Those same people who were in the MPAJA are now Communist terrorists. Look, I don't know what happened between you and him and frankly I don't want to know. The thing is, we need his help, Lu See. If we're going to win this war, we need him. And that's really all I can tell you.''

Lu See watched Stan's eyes, scarcely able to breathe. A pressure in her throat was building. His words had a nightmare quality; all of a sudden she felt as though she was in the middle of a dream, locked in a room with a monster.

‘‘You'll still do this for us, won't you?'' he said, eventually. ‘‘You'll still go through with the plan?''

The pressure in her throat increased. She hardly heard what he was saying. Slowly, she nodded.

 

I should have known
, thought Lu See,
I should have known he'd come back and haunt my dreams.

She remembered the feeling of helplessness when she'd discovered the organ pipes were gone; dug up and replaced with a rotting sheep's head. When had he done it? When had he switched them? It must have been some time in 1943, soon after he'd befriended Tozawa. Had he been watching her all the time? She pictured him laughing at her, at her stupidity. The copper would have been invaluable to the Japanese war effort – smelted down, it would be used for wiring electrical equipment and radio components. The Kempeitai would have rewarded him handsomely for it.

The bastard, the bloody bastard.
Of all her ghosts the Black-headed Sheep was the one that had never been laid to rest.

Her blood ran cool again as his face, his mole, the ugly slant of his shoulders all came to mind. And she knew, that despite the dangers, she was going to have to expose him.

 

Rain clouds marked the KL skyline, spilling moisture. Lu See looked at the clock. A sudden spasm streaked through her gut. Ignoring the pain, she concentrated on the time. It was almost 4 p.m. and the city seemed to hold its breath as the usual daily downpour approached. The wet rooftops, warped from the monsoon rains, rang out with the call of the muezzin.

Allaaaahu Akhbar! Allaaaahu Akhbar! Subhaan-Allaah wa'l-hamdu Lillaah wa laa ilaaha ill-Allaah wa Allaahu akbar wa laa hawla wa la quwwata illa Billaah.

The late afternoon heat, combined with the effects of Ramadan fasting, were making people heavy-lidded. Along Macao Street some of the Muslim eateries had drawn curtains across their windows so that the hungry could snack without guilt or recrimination.

An Indian woman in a sari floated by, a section of her stomach showing; the skin paler than her face and arms. It was Mrs Viswanath from the spice shop. As she passed the restaurant, she waved a languid hand at Lu See. ‘‘
Selamat Siang
,'' she sang.

Lu See nodded at her and checked her watch again, waiting for the top of the hour.

Wobbling her head, Mrs Viswanath's scarlet bindi shone between her eyebrows as she smiled.

To distract herself, Lu See turned to the porcelain ewer and basin at Il Porco's entrance where diners washed their hands before and after meals. Presently, the ewer was a quarter full and Lu See topped it up with fresh water, adding half a lime to give it a squeeze of scent.

A minute or so later she poured herself a whisky and threw it back in one gulp, wiping her mouth with the back of a hand like John Wayne in a Wild West saloon. Then she snatched the large brown parcel from behind the counter and headed down Macao Street, pushing past the lottery ticket vendors. Dressed in lightweight
samfoo
and her favourite
kasut manek
beaded slippers, she looked like any other middle-class Chinese woman in the city.

By the Tung Wah Association assembly hall on Klyne Street an elderly gentleman practising tai-chi arched his eyebrows at her. She dropped a white handkerchief and stepped on it with her right foot. He twisted his chin towards an alleyway.

Here she found a small room dug from a hole in a wall. Through the narrow door, just wide enough to allow one person through at a time, she saw a dim naked bulb drooping from the ceiling. Inside, seated on a wooden stool, a bald man in a string vest with a toothpick between his lips shot her a what-do-you-want glare. There was a mirror on the wall and several pairs of scissors and combs thrown together on a brass tray. The place smelt of Brylcreem.

‘‘Yes?'' he challenged. She regarded him. His spectacles magnified the size of his squinting eyes, making them appear far too big for him.

‘‘I'm Teoh Lu See. I am here to see the mule.''

His gaze travelled down her face. ‘‘There is nobody here by that name.''

She persisted. ‘‘Do you know why I have come?'' The man feigned ignorance, examining a hairbrush for hairs. ‘‘I think you do,'' she said. ‘‘My daughter Mabel, you know who she is. I want you to give her this money and I want her to have these things.'' She opened the brown parcel and pulled out Carlisle bandages, linen gauze pads, water purification tablets, a bottle of aspirin and packets of sulfanilamide and $300.

‘‘I don't know what you are talking about,'' the man said unconvincingly.

‘‘Look, these things could help keep her alive.''

‘‘Who sent you here?''

‘‘I've been trying to contact my daughter for over a year!'' Lu See exclaimed, almost pleading.

His face softened a fraction. ‘‘How do you know about the mule?''

Lu See swallowed. The heat in the airless room was making her perspire; she brushed a strand of sticky hair from her face. ‘‘Fishlips Foo told me,'' she said. ‘‘I have known Bong and his grandfather for years.'' The man held her gaze. ‘‘Use the money on anything you think she and her unit needs, medicines, swabs, food. Can you do this for me?'' The man eyed her; his face a map of suspicion. ‘‘I can also get my hands on battery-operated radio receivers.''

The man said nothing.

‘‘Please don't make this more difficult for me. I should have done this earlier, I should have supported the cause earlier, but I was afraid. I am still afraid.''

‘‘I run a barber shop,'' the man said. ‘‘I really cannot help you.''

‘‘I have a dozen battery-operated radio receivers in my home. Please allow me to donate them to the barber shop.''

The man looked at her. A spark of shrewdness hid behind his eyes.

She made to leave. As she turned he said, almost inaudibly, ‘‘I will see what I can do. You are aware we will take the radios apart to check for explosives?''

‘‘As is your right.''

‘‘There's one more thing.'' She extracted Stan's calling card from her sleeve and placed it on a tub of Brylcreem. ‘‘On this card is an address. It is a secret place. There's a man who goes there from time to time. He wears a white suit and has a mole on his left cheek. Woo Hak-yeung. You'll remember him as the Black-headed Sheep. During the war he killed many of our friends, many of your colleagues. Perhaps you thought he was dead. Well, he's not. He's alive and he's still killing your colleagues. Do with him as you feel fit.''

The man pinched the skin between his eyes. ‘‘Someone will contact you about the radio receivers. Do not come back here again.''

Later, it was business as usual at Il Porco.

‘‘More
teh tarik
!'' roared Old Fishlips from the far corner with despotic ferocity.

‘‘Your pulled tea is on its way, Mr Foo. Just be patient,'' Lu See said. She was in her kitchen, slicing carrot discs. In annoyance the old man flapped the pages of his newspaper and belched.

After fetching his tea, Lu See kneaded her lower abdomen with her thumbs, massaging a spot to the left of her navel. Her stomach cramped more often now and there was blood in her stool. She was sure, too, that she was nursing a fever.

She went to the cashier's desk, removed a piece of writing paper and sat down. Pebbles nudged her with his cold moist nose and because Dungeonboy was sweeping the floor with a broom Lu See was forced to pick up her slippers as he swept up under her.

‘‘
Tsk!
Impossbo, impossbo,'' he complained, with a grin.

‘‘What is impossible?''

‘‘
Alla mak
, keeping
nee gor
floor clean-ah, of coss! Impossbo!
Ayaahh
, everywhere dog hair! Like when toothless Grandma Fung tries to eat hard, raw carrot. Impossbo!'' He laughed.

Mother, seated by the door, adjusted her batwing spectacles. ‘‘Lu See, did I tell you that your brothers will be paying you a visit soon? They want to give you earbashing for allowing Mabel to run off the way she did.''

‘‘Why on earth would they do that now? Mabel's been gone for ages!'' Lu See bristled.

‘‘At first they relied on prayer, hoping Jehovah would bring her home.''

‘‘And when prayer fails, they come to badger me. What's it got to do with them, anyway?''

‘‘That's what I say, but you know what James and Peter are like, all holy-than-thou. They always such busybodies.''

‘‘I wonder who they take after, aahh!'' Uncle Big Jowl strolled in swaying from side to side like a top-heavy bus. ‘‘A plate of
char siu faan
, please.'' He threw a letter on the cashier's desk. ‘‘Post just arrived. Looks like you have a fancy letter from the Italian Embassy. See?'' He gestured with a salami-like finger. ‘‘Says so on the back.''

The telephone rang. ‘‘
Wai-eeee!
''

Lu See wiped the palms of her hands on her apron and ripped open the envelope and saw a gold-embossed card with an invitation to drinks with the new ambassador. ‘‘Strange,'' she said aloud. ‘‘I wonder why they asked me?''